laure prouvost

Michael: Every time I go to a fair I’ve been told is going to suck, I’m pleasantly surprised by the first few works I see and actually like that are somewhat engaging. Then, usually within an hour of arrival, fair fatigue sets in and I want anything to shatter the stifling boredom.Molly: I’m honestly devastated I didn’t know that the “YOUR MOM” balloons were free for me to take.

“Ai Weiwei on Alcatraz” will be the Chinese artist and former government detainee’s first exhibition to be held at a prison. [In the Air]

Greg Allen (@gregorg) reports on Miami’s Perez Art Museum and why local collectors have yet to show much support to the museum. Opening day is tomorrow. When it was announced that the museum would be named for developer Jorge Perez in the wake of a $35 million gift of cash and art, four board members resigned. While Perez chalks it up to racism, critic Tyler Green points out that the institution needs to improve its relationship with local collectors in order to grow its own collection. [NPR]

Laure Prouvost has been announced as this year’s Turner Prize winner, beating out David Shrigley, Tino Sehgal, and Lynette Yiadom-Boakye for the £25,000 prize. She was the underdog. [BBC]

I love Ed Halter. Here he is, conversing with Lauren Cornell, talking about pop culture and art. “It’s like Pop Art in reverse: Warhol took the content of mass culture and brought it into art, while [Abramović and Lady Gaga] are using ‘art’ as content and spreading it through contemporary forms of mass media—but really they’re only producing a new form of kitsch, complete with mawkish sentimentality.” [Mousse Magazine]

Narcoleptic dogs are one reason why we know so much about the science of sleep. A breed of narcoleptic dogs was bred by Stanford scientists, and now there’s a range of poodles and dobermans who can fall asleep without more than the drop of a pin. [The New Yorker]

Kanye West is crazier than we thought. He thinks he’s more relevant than the President—because nobody cares what Obama wears. Hrag Vartanian points out this is untrue. (Paddy) [Hyperallergic]

Extravagant much? Matias Faldbakken, one of 24 artists chosen to display public art works at Miami Basel, is putting the Peterbilt big rig truck from Steven Spielberg’s hell-on-wheels film Duel (1971) in the sculpture park. [Channel 16 Florida]

Peter Brant is more than just an art collector; he’s been a pal to artists. After Brant bought his first Warhol when he was just 21, Andy and Peter ended up taking trips together: to Aspen, Europe, and closer to home, Montauk. [Wall Street Journal]

This summer, the Met is coming out with yet another blockbuster fashion exhibition, Punk: Chaos to Couture. (That title probably sounds better when said aloud in a death metal growl.) We kid you not, there will be a CBGB bathroom installed in the Met. [New York Magazine]

Developers are currently digging up a few more blocks of High Line, north of 30th street, now to be added to the the existing park. [Curbed; Crain’s]

Gross. Julia Halperin reports more museum woes, thanks to shoddy leadership. After this week’s news that MoMA plans to demolish the old Folk Art Museum building, the US Bankruptcy Court has ordered around 200 works seized from its collection. The works had been promised to the museum in 2005 by its former chairman, collector and jewelry merchant Ralph Esmerian, who later used the same work “as collateral to secure multi-million-dollar loans from Sotheby’s and Christie’s.” Esmerian never repaid his debts, and he’s currently in prison for wire fraud, so Sotheby’s will be selling them off this winter. Christie’s is upset because the work isn’t getting sold at Christie’s. Just drag it right through the mud. [The Art Newspaper]

Shoddy leadership is a plague. Felix Salmon explains how Cooper Union’s board mismanaged funds they were charged with overseeing, and must now, in direct violation of founder Peter Cooper’s vision, charge tuition. No one has been held accountable. [Felix Salmon]